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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930253">the glass never cracked at all</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/leigh_beez'>leigh_beez (orphan_account)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(I hope?), Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Compliant, M/M, canon-typical fear, first tma fic, implied abuse?, it'll be happy at the end i promise, season 5, spiral doors, trying my hand at a tma fic, trying to expand upon the tension i saw in mag 173: night night, written PRE s5 spiral episode</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:15:05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,456</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930253</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/leigh_beez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Finally, Martin spoke up. "Do you... do you know where we're going?"</p><p>Jons nods, a sigh intermingling with his next words. "We're going to the Heart of the Deceit. If we can find it... I think It's going to put up a fight."</p><p>"And if we can't find it?" Martin was looking behind him again. What did he see?</p><p>Jon clenches his fists a moment, before just... letting them relax. "Then we get out of here. I can't risk..." He trails off. Martin nods.<br/>"I know. I know, Jon. I don't... I don't really care anymore. Seriously. It's more important that we get out of here..."<br/>-</p><p>Martin goes through a Spiral door.<br/>Jon contemplates what it means to not be able to save anybody, even the ones he loves. </p><p>(this is, unfortunately, an abandoned fic. sorry)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>16</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the glass never cracked at all</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Spiral wasn't nearly what Jon had imagined. Well, that wasn't quite true. As they'd approached, he'd been given a perfect Look at what was inside. It was the appearance of an office building, with drab carpets and long, long hallways. There was sometimes glass replacing the walls, showing the worker inside, battling the twisting of whatever had been put in front of them. </p><p> </p><p>He'd rather thought the carpeting would be a bit better. He squeezed Martin's hand as the landscape began to bleed into the boredom-then-insanity inducing office. He guides Martin past the 'help desk', which is nothing at all except for about a dozen bells stacked on a desk. </p><p> </p><p>Martin kept looking behind. Like he was seeing something. Jon pulled him a bit closer as they walked. He wouldn't say anything unless Martin spoke up. Martin seemed to ease a bit, pressing into him. Jon would not look behind him. He would not. </p><p> </p><p>Instead, he skirted his fingers across the occasional glass breaking up the white wallpaper. </p><p> </p><p>Finally, Martin spoke up. "Do you... do you know where we're going?"</p><p>Jons nods, a sigh intermingling with his next words. "We're going to the Heart of the Deceit. If we can find it... I think It's going to put up a fight."</p><p>"And if we can't find it?" Martin was looking behind him again. What did he see?</p><p>Jon clenches his fists a moment, before just... letting them relax. "Then we get out of here. I can't risk..." He trails off. Martin nods. </p><p>"I know. I know, Jon. I don't... I don't really care anymore. Seriously. It's more important that we get out of here..." Martin smiles gently, face pulling upward just a bit.</p><p> </p><p>Martin's smile fills him with a traitorous sort of courage, and his back straightens a bit. He continues to pull him along, fingers pausing on the scrubbed glass surface every now and then. </p><p> </p><p>The hallways are unending. And Jon can feel himself no closer to the Heart of it in all, no closer to the visions of sprawling, tearing, spiralling, branching limbs writhing and beating and feeding into the heart of nothing and everything. </p><p> </p><p>The suffering is infinite, billions of hypotheticals, the occupants inside fighting them and ignoring them and submitting to them and dying and living to them. He tilts his head towards the glass pane his hand rests on now. It's a middle-aged woman, sobbing on her knees in an empty room, clutching something that isn't there. Scratching at her face, trying to stop tears that keep coming. </p><p> </p><p>He ignores the two-step his heart does at that. It should not fill him with so much energy.</p><p> He knows what she is fighting in there, the Knowledge materializing as easily as if he were truly seeing it. Her husband, taken by the endless office. Her child, dead in her arms. </p><p> </p><p>She didn't, doesn't even know where she is. The last words her husband told her was that he had to keep working, despite the broken leg. If he could sit at a desk and work, he had to. </p><p> </p><p>He didn't come back. She and her child slowly felt the clawing of hunger in a house that didn't exist, on a street that never awoke, in a town that barely even tried to appear as such. </p><p>And now her child had died, and she'd be next. Her stomach felt sharp against the rest of her. Poking and prodding and reminding her of her fear, her cowardice, her--<br/>
<br/>
Martin was squeezing his hand.</p><p> </p><p>"Come on, Jon," he says, quietly. "We have to keep walking...."</p><p> </p><p>He shakes the knowledge and continues. He hadn't even been talking at all. How curious. That woman's child wasn't truly there, of course. Jessie was somewhere in Night Street, where they'd left her behind. </p><p>He didn't want to think about it. But he had to. So he did. </p><p>They passed rows and rows and rows of people, trapped in delusion and grief and fear. Once again, his fingers lingered on the glass window showing...</p><p> </p><p>A child. </p><p> </p><p>A child not in the dark. </p><p> </p><p>The child was laying on a couch, pushing himself further into it as to distance himself from whatever he was experiencing. His small fingers were pushed into his ears. His eyes were slammed shut. </p><p> </p><p>He was just waiting for it to be over again, the panic that his household flurried into when his brother would--</p><p> </p><p>Jon snaps back into reality as he sees Martin put his hand on the glass too. Heavily. The glass wobbles almost comically but stays firm. </p><p> </p><p>"Is that a child?" Martin says, outraged. </p><p> </p><p>"....Some children have fears too developed for the Dark.." Jon mumbles, and Martin huffs in frustration.</p><p>"What is he seeing?" Martin demands, staring even closer at the boy, squirming and pressing himself farther into the pillows. </p><p> </p><p>"..He is seeing a memory, twisted into reality." Jon supplies. </p><p>"We have to help him," Martin decides, banging on the glass more. With both hands, slamming on it. It only wobbles like laminated paper. </p><p> </p><p>"We have to get him out, Jon!" he's pleading, now. "That's a child in there, Jon!" </p><p> </p><p>"I know." Jon whispers. The repetition of his name does little to ground him. He does not want to reach out at Martin now. Martin, slamming both hands into the glass that will not break. Martin, with tears of rage pooling in his eyes. Martin, who---</p><p> </p><p>Jon stops... Martin doesn't deserve that. He cannot dig into Martin's thoughts just to try and keep himself from floating away. He doesn't deserve that. </p><p> </p><p>"..Martin?"</p><p> </p><p>"Yes," comes his dim reply. His head is now up against the window, in defeat. </p><p>"We can't help them, Martin," he reminds. Eyes wide and.. not defeated. No. He wasn't there yet. But..</p><p>How much would it take for Martin to realize? Did he even want Martin to realize? To know, to the extent that he did, that no one here, no one ANYWHERE, could be saved?</p><p> </p><p>"Yes, Yes we can. I can feel it, Jon, there's some way to help them." Martin's gone back to banging on the glass. </p><p> </p><p>"It's not true, Martin..." It's the Deceit, he wants to say. But he can't. A door opens up, next to the glass. And swings open, an invitation to help. To save.</p><p> </p><p>"Jon," he begins, at first soft and then slowly getting louder, "You always say that. We can't help them, we can't save them. We finally get a chance to TRY, and--" he slams the glass again. It cracks, and Martin grins in victory, though he continues his rant. "and you don't even consider it!"</p><p> </p><p>“I can’t consider it, Martin, because I know all it’ll do is distract us!” Jon’s plea falls on deaf ears. </p><p> </p><p>When Martin sees the door open up, he gives Jon a look. Softened, almost, by the expression Jon shoots back. An expression of surrender. </p><p> </p><p>In return, all Martin says is, “I’m going in. Stay right here. You.. you should still be able to see me, right? The glass cracked. If.. something happens to me, just-- smash it,”</p><p> </p><p>Jon just shakes his head. </p><p> </p><p>Martin pauses a moment. And then he sighs. “I have to do this, Jon. I’ll be right back.”<br/>
And then he goes in.</p><p> </p><p>Jon goes to follow him, scrambling to grab the doorknob, to wrench it open as it closes, to keep it from swallowing up his anchor, his love, his-- </p><p> </p><p>It slams shut.</p><p> </p><p>For just a moment, he saw the outside. He saw the landscape outside the office, bleeding back out into in between. He saw the Panopticon.<br/>
Then, he saw inside the glass, with the little boy. The two scenes flickered as the door closed.</p><p> </p><p>What had he done?</p><p> </p><p>“Martin!” He yells, slamming against the glass. He does not see the other man behind it. Only the child, clutching his ears and squirming with fear. </p><p> </p><p>Trapped in an endless nightmare. </p><p> </p><p>The glass does not crack. In fact, it seems that it was never even cracked at all. It just wobbles like paper.</p><p> </p><p>“Martin!!” he calls again, throat scratching and closing, the sign of coming tears. </p><p> </p><p>He cannot continue to walk. He cannot move more than this.</p><p>He knows that if he does, he will be brought closer and closer to the Heart of the Deceit. And farther and farther away from Martin. </p><p> </p><p>He cannot face the Heart alone. He cannot face anything alone.</p><p>And he realizes why he stopped here.<br/>
There are Words gathering in the back of his throat. Stories to be told, waiting to burst out.</p><p> </p><p>He lowers himself to the ground, curling in on himself, and begins to detail out the suffering of those within the Spiral’s jaws. </p><p> </p><p>He doesn’t even notice the tape recorder turn on in his bag.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>thank you for reading!!!! </p><p>i know everybody said spiral musical episode this, spiral helen wife that</p><p>but this fic came to me at like 1 am, and like any other nocturnal idea i must write it to its end even if it isn't as bright and sparkly as it should be</p><p>btw this WILL get happy!!!! just give it time</p><p>(u can talk 2 me @ghostingbrightly on tumblr!!!)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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